07/10/10: J7 publish our Submissions to the 7 July Inquests, a series of documents compiled following Lady Justice Hallett's decision to accept submissions suggesting questions and lines of inquiry for the Inquests.

10/08/10: A new film 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction has been released that places 7/7 in its wider historical and political context, and examines some of the many unanswered questions that still surround 7 July 2005.

16/08/07: Channel 4 News' Darshna Soni blogs about the need for a 7/7 public inquiry and asks how independent or public such an inquiry would be under the Inquiries Act 2005, a piece of legislation that puts the government in control of 'independent' inquiries - 7/7 and the public inquiry dilemma, formerly titled, "Why it's time for a public inquiry into 7/7"

07/03/07: J7 publish a new article by Professor David MacGregor, 'July 7th as Machiavellian State Terror?' an article in which the events of 7/7 are given historical context and examined as potential acts of, 'Machiavellian state terror, spectacular violence perpetrated against the state by elements of the state itself'.

July 7th Alternative Hypotheses

6. The four men thought they were going to be delivering drugs or money to various locations round London, but were deceived, set up and murdered along with the others on their tubes and bus when their back packs exploded.

William Bowles was one of the first to propose this hypothesis, asking on July 15th 2005 'Were the London bombings a set up?'. Bowles, whilst freely admitting he was engaging in conjecture, pointed out that the area in Leeds in which three of the men had resided was well known for its proliferate drug culture, and that the men may have met in Luton to collect the drugs to deliver in London.

In accordance with this scenario, the so-called 'bomb factories' in Alexandra Grove and Chapeltown Road may well have been used not for the manufacture of bombs but as a drugs den. It may even explain the large amount of money sitting in the bank account of Shehzad Tanweer at the time of his death as mentioned in Hypothesis 2. A neighbour in Alexandra Grove, Sylvia Waugh, gave an interview to ITN News on June 15th 2006, stating,

And this is on the July the 7th, where I saw 'em all, what I thought were dealing in drugs and it was them, getting into the vehicles to go at that time to bomb London. I saw 'em putting stuff into the boot of cars and I thought they were dealing in drugs - and I know they saw me from the window.

The fact that the neighbour mentions “vehicles” and “cars” when the police had announced that the three men from Leeds had all travelled to London in one vehicle – a Nissan Micra hired by Shehzad Tanweer – could suggest that more than the three suspects were packing up their cars that night.

Another neighbour had reported that chemical fumes had permeated neighbouring flats. What appears to be the same neighbour with a differently spelled surname said that his brother who lived in a nearby flat had noticed “a funny smell” The Official Report gives no testimony from neighbours but states,

The mixtures would have smelt bad enough to make the room very difficult to work in. Both Tanweer and Lindsay bought face masks from shops and on the internet. The signs are that the bombs were made with the windows open but the net curtains taped to the walls to avoid being seen. The fumes had killed off the tops of plants just outside the windows.

The mixtures would also have had a strong bleaching effect. Both Tanweer and Hussain’s families had noticed that their hair had become lighter over the weeks before the bombing. They explained this as the effect of chlorine from swimming pools (the two men and Khan regularly swam together). There were shower caps at 18 Alexandra Grove which may have been used during the manufacturing process to try to disguise this.

Source: Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005

As mentioned in Hypothesis 3, it was claimed that a “mystery man” had ordered 50 litres of liquid oxygen from a hydroponics shop in Yorkshire, left a deposit of £100 but never returned to collect the order – despite the shopkeeper helpfully asking “Do you know you can make explosives with that?”.

When the New York Police Department reconstructed the Alexandra Grove 'bomb factory', the initial reactions of the officers when first shown the recreation were somewhat interesting:

"When one group of officers came in, we asked them what this room looked like. They said it looks like they were cooking narcotics," a counterterrorism expert recalled.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly stated in the same article that such reconstructions were “great training tools. They help put the officers in the terrorists' shoes just before they launched their attacks.” However, when referring on the same reconstructed flat eight months later, the Mirror reported,

Painstakingly re-created by the New York Police Department, it is used to train counter terrorist officers, firefighters and other emergency personnel to distinguish between what could be a drugs den or even a scruffy apartment from a bomb factory......

Counter terror chief Deputy Inspector Joseph Cordes said: "Our bomb squad and techs have seen this apartment, but this is mainly a training tool for the cops on the street.

"These guys are knocking on people's doors every day and they need to know what to look out for."

All of which suggests that it may be quite difficult to distinguish between a flat used for the manufacture of illegal drugs and a flat used for the manufacture of explosives. The kinds of effects described earlier, such as the strong smell, may also originate from the manufacture of drugs, which can also give off a “distinctive, obnoxious odour” .

One of the biggest difficulties with this hypothesis are the reports that the July 7th suspects were well known for their anti-drugs views and at least two of them were dedicated to helping local youths overcome drug habits. The Independent reported in September 2005 that Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were integral members of the 'Mullah Crew'; a group credited with helping to clean up the area's drugs problem. The Mullah Crew engaged disaffected young men in outdoor activities such as paint balling, climbing and canoeing – activities which the authorities and media commonly link to terrorism and radicalisation. Such activities, though, are often engaged in by corporate groups and individuals such as John Prescott. Whilst working as a learning mentor at Hillside School in Beeston, Mohammad Sidique Khan had designed a brochure aimed at young people, warning of the dangers of drug use and also worked on a government-funded study of the area's drug problems,

In a note appended to the 2001 report, Mr. Khan wrote: "I have tried to support and help local drug users in the past, but at best this has been haphazard. I feel that the knowledge and experience on drugs and community research that I've gained through the training and the field work has been invaluable."

Some reports have even suggested that fellow suspect Hasib Hussain had been 'rescued' by The Mullah Crew,

Hussain, who was by far the youngest of the four bombers, has always seemed the odd one out of the Leeds triumvirate. The ringleader, Khan, and the highly driven Tanweer were motivated Jihadists who had visited Pakistan several times to develop their radical Islamic ideas. But Hussain had only visited the country once, to attend his brother's wedding.

Neither was he one of the 15-strong core of the so-called Mullah Crew of Asians from the Beeston district of Leeds which helped Asian youths to live clean lives in line with a strict Muslim faith. Khan and Tanweer were part of this group. The Crew attracted a large number of youths who were pushed towards radical Islam and Hussain seems to have been one of those they "saved".

A number of sources in Beeston suggest that until the summer of 2004, Hussain was known for his clubbing and occasional drug-taking before starting his association with the Crew.

In August 2005, The Huddersfield Examiner claimed that Jermaine Lindsay had dealt in drugs whilst at school. The report appears to suggest that this alleged activity ceased with his conversion to Islam when he was 15.

Based on what we know of the character and background of the four, I’d rule out the idea that they thought they were drug couriers. More likely, I believe, is that the manipulator would have played on their political and religious sympathies and their sense of adventure. They would have been told they were transferring something important (guns, munitions, currency, explosives – exactly what would probably have been left to their imagination) to separate locations in London for onshipment to the final recipient – possibly the Iraq resistance or a Palestinian group.

An integral element of this scenario, of course, involves who exactly would have overseen the operation, who the drugs had been ordered by and being delivered to – and who, exactly had arranged the duping operation. One of the biggest questions would be, if there was no al-Qa'ida mastermind, as discussed in Hypotheses 1, 2, 3 and 5 – who set up the men?

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Note: All comments on the J7 Alternative Hypotheses articles will be added to a single comment thread. When commenting, please specify the hypothesis to which you are referring.

6. The four men thought they were going to be delivering drugs or money to various locations round London, but were deceived, set up and murdered along with the others on their tubes and bus when their back packs exploded.